Cruise Planning
This site is provided as a means of communications with the USPS National Marine Environment Committee (MEnvCom). We welcome your questions and comments on our courses, seminars and associated materials.
R/C Ronald H. Kessel, SN
Stf/C Joan C. Croft, AP
Topics
|
|
News
Planning for a New CP Course
The Marine Environment Committee is in the early stages of designing a successor to the existing Cruise Planning course. It is a formidable challenge. To help us, the committee would like your input on the structure, scope, and depth of a new course and/or related seminars. Go to the Request for CP Input section for the topics/questions about which the committee would like to have your ideas. (20 Aug 09)
Boating on Rivers, Locks and Lakes Seminar Project
P/R/C Robert Brandenstein, SN is working on a new seminar directed towards our large inland boating membership and the general public. The seminar will deal with topics related to river boating, locking through, bridges, and lake boating. The project has involved coordinating with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard as they are the sources of some of the material to be used in both the seminar manual and slide presentation. An announcement will be made when the committee has a fix on when the seminar materials will be available. (20 Aug 09)
Cruise Planning Course Description
Designed for members who plan to cruise for just a day or for a year--in either a sail or powerboat--this course covers the following topics:
- Cruise preparation and planning
- Boat and Equipment
- Anchors and Anchoring
- Security
- Chartering
- Cruising Outside the United States
- Crew and Provisioning
- Voyage Management
- Communications
- Navigation
- Weather
- Emergencies
The manual includes a twelve-month cruise planning timeline. The course is non-modular with one final exam.
Downloadable Material
Cruise Planning 2003 Update 01
Updates are provided to keep the course material as current as possible. The national course chairman welcomes all comments and suggestions. This Update includes submissions received by the Committee from interested Cruise Planning instructors and students. Contact the Committee Chairman if you have suggestions for course improvements.
Cruise Planning 2003 Update
01, dated 14 August 2004, is available in PDF format (73KB).
Cruise Planning 2003 PowerPoint® Presentation Slides
These PowerPoint slide presentations were created with PowerPoint 2002. You will need Microsoft PowerPoint or its free viewer to view or print these slides. See the Educational Department Help page to obtain a free viewer for these slides. The files are in compressed format (.zip) for faster downloads. (23 Jan 04)
| CP03 - Chapter 1 (657KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 2 (1826KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 3 (2485KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 4,5,6 (467KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 7 (1624KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 8 (656KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 9 (100KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 10 (621KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 11 (1379KB) |
| CP03 - Chapter 12 (552KB) |
| CP02 - Timeline (8KB) |
Weather Log
The following Weather Logs are for use in both the Cruise Planning and Weather courses.
- Weather Log in Acrobat format (PDF, 13KB)
- Weather Log in MS Excel format (XLS, 26KB)
Request for CP Input
With the tasks of creating a new weather course and its launch completed, the MEnvCom is now turning its attention to the present Cruise Planning Course (2003) and the challenge of revising it. Before plunging into a major rewrite, the MEnvCom is asking for opinions, comments and suggestions about the basic structure, scope and depth of a new CP course and/or seminars. Your responses to the questions below will help guide the committee as it prepares a storyboard for review.
The Challenge:
Over the years the Cruise Planning Course has had both enthusiastic supporters and critics. For example, some love it as an introductory level course for weekend cruisers to be taught at a simple level. Others support it as a useful survey course or a review for experienced boaters. Critics, on the other hand, regard the course as mostly redundant with other courses and unnecessary. If anything, redundancy is even more of a challenge now with the recent dramatic increase in USPS seminar offerings.
The Questions:
Please give us your views and thoughts about the following matters:
-
Should there be a full Cruise Planning Course at all? Would a mini-course or one or more seminars be a better alternative?
-
How does (should) the subject of Cruise Planning fit into the present USPS curriculum with all its seminars? Would it fit better if it was redesigned?
-
To what extent (if at all) is redundancy with other courses and seminars acceptable? The overlap includes not only existing courses but also seminars. Examples of seminar overlap include anchoring and weather and a new one on "Boating on Rivers, Locks and Lakes" that is in the works.
-
What are the specific topics not covered by other courses and seminars that are necessary for the Boat Operator Certification Program? How should such topics be organized and presented to best support the program?
-
At what level should the course be taught, i.e., who is the audience? Should it be a simple course for those who will not take any appreciable number of other USPS courses? Alternatively, should it be taught at a somewhat higher level eliminating material that is redundant with other courses and seminars while adding more substance?
-
Should the course be beefed up with some more scientific background – oceanography as it relates to coastal cruising/passage making and the hydrology of rivers and lakes for inland cruising?
-
Should the course be a cruising as well as a cruise planning course? In fact, an argument could be made that the present title - Cruise Planning - is really a misnomer.
-
Should the course cover cruising in particular areas (e.g., the Caribbean, the Northwest, Great Lakes, Great Loop)? Given the vast number of detailed area cruising guides that are commercially available, does it still make sense to deal in a much more abbreviated and general way with some selected geographical areas?
-
What about ocean passage making? Even though only a small number of boaters have been or ever will be passage makers, should we nevertheless respond to the dreamer in all of us or leave this to be covered in seminars?
Feel free to use e-mail (MEnvCom@usps.org) or postal mail to provide your inputs to the Chairman of the Marine Environment Committee. All responses (whether short, long or in between) will be appreciated.
Questions or Comments?
If you have any questions or comments about the Cruise Planning course, please contact the National Marine Environment Committee chairman by e-mail, phone or postal service mail. Please be sure to keep your SEO and/or DEO advised of any correspondence you may have with the National committee. Addresses for the National MEnvCom chairman are listed in The ENSIGN and on the Committee Chairpersons page.
We will try to answer your questions as soon as possible, but please allow 5 working days for an answer.
 |
|
|